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Typhoon batters southeast China as smog chokes north

Extreme weather conditions are ruining the October "Golden Week" for many Chinese travelers, and threatening the lives and livelihoods of people in the path of a typhoon packing winds of up to 94 miles an hour.

BEIJING — Extreme weather conditions — both natural and man-made — are ruining the October "Golden Week" for many Chinese travelers and threatening the lives and livelihoods of people in the path of a typhoon packing winds of up to 94 mph.

More than 400,000 residents and tourists in southeast China had been evacuated by Sunday afternoon as high waves pounded the coast ahead of Typhoon Fitow, state news agency Xinhua reported. China's National Meteorological Center predicted the "strong" typhoon would hit between Zhejiang and Fujian provinces in southeast China early Monday morning local time.

Meanwhile, a dense haze of pollution and fog covered most of northern China on Sunday, shutting dozens of major highways, Xinhua reported.

The smog reached such a hazardous level, even for China's long-suffering capital, that the U.S. Embassy sent an e-mail alert to American citizens in Beijing, advising they stay indoors and keep their air purifiers on.

The typhoon and smog come at the close of a weeklong national holiday, called a "Golden Week" here by authorities eager for travelers and consumers to spend freely before millions of Chinese head home as work restarts Tuesday.

Typhoon Fitow, named after a Micronesian flower, also forced China's maritime authorities to upgrade their severe weather warning Sunday to a red alert, the highest level of a four-tier system, for storm tides and waves.

The violent storm is the 23rd typhoon to hit China this year, according to the Chinese government's count, but comes later than usual in a typhoon season that usually starts in July and ends in October. Offshore seaweed growers in Fujian's Sansha Town, Xiapu county, told Xinhua that high waves had destroyed about half their crop Sunday.

Smog remains a year-round problem in Beijing, chiefly blamed on coal-burning and industry and vehicle emissions, but many residents grumble that gray skies more typical of winter have come early. China plans to build a nationwide network within three to five years to monitor the effects of air pollution on health, Xinhua announced Sunday.

The haze affected both players and spectators at the China Open tennis finals in Beijing. "It's not ideal in terms of pollution," said the men's winner, Novak Djokovic, of conditions so bad that some spectators at the open-air event wore masks or pulled their shirts up over their faces.

"Yes, we've been talking about the weather conditions, but it is what it is; it's something that has been the same for the last few years that I've been coming back here," Djokovic said at a post-match news conference Sunday, according to the Associated Press.